Dr Schizo

Abstract

The contemporary writer and critic Maurice G. Dantec is among those French intellectuals accused of forming part of a `new reactionary' movement. This article sets out Dantec's political position based on a close reading of Laboratoire de catastrophe générale (2001) and focusing in particular on his militaristic view of international relations, his condemnation of the European socialist left and his `evolutionist' account of the history of ideas. The sources of Dantec's thought are located, principally, in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and in a radical Christianity. It is finally argued, from a Nietzschean perspective, that Dantec's `post-human' somatic and dietary regime tends to give his writing a hyperbolic tone and an ironically self-centred focus, even as his implacable morality bears comparison to other thinkers situated broadly on the left, for instance the Christian-structured ethics of Alain Badiou.